The mobos manufacturers would use it as a marketing gimmick and jack up the prices of their mobos WAY above what we see now.

I mean what do you think is the markup on an Asus RoG mobo? I would say between 50-60%. Now think that manufacturers would only implement this on their uber-high-end models and I can imagine those mobos going for very close to $500-$550 a pop.

SLI and Crossfire can be "hacked" on a driver level to work, and HP most likely paid a stupid amount of money to all 3 manufacturers to "unlock" SLI/Crossfire on the same chipset. I have to agree with SKYMTL on this. There is no way you'll see a mainstream retail motherboard that will support both, and we are even less likely to ever see an Intel chipset officially support SLI. It just won't happen unless a mainboard manufacturer decides to pay the 3 majors some serious dough to allow it. OEM, yes. Retail, no.

The mobos manufacturers would use it as a marketing gimmick and jack up the prices of their mobos WAY above what we see now.

I mean what do you think is the markup on an Asus RoG mobo? I would say between 50-60%. Now think that manufacturers would only implement this on their uber-high-end models and I can imagine those mobos going for very close to $500-$550 a pop.

Yes and if they made a $600 motherboard you know as well as I do that people would buy it.

It has nothing to do with costs...NVIDIA simply will not license SLI to other chipset providers. SLI is their ecosystem. This will continue to be the case in the future, even though NVIDIA and Intel have long been in talks for NVIDIA to supply the enthusiast grade boards for Intel's own branded products as well as provide chipsets for the entry level Intel branded boards that ATI had previously provided. SLI is only a driver level lockout, it has nothing to do with the southbridge.